This comes at an appropriate moment: I heard from Nick Philip last week. He’s still in San Francisco and he’s designing T shirts again. There’s an article about Nick in Res Magazine or you can see the shirts themselves at The Imaginary Foundation. “Is it Art?” the headline asked, at a time when the idea of anything to do with skateboarding appearing in a gallery seemed very strange. Exhibitions of skateboard graphics as art now seem commonplace and the number of skaters and ex-skaters who are now working as artists (without trading on the skating side of things) is vast. By further coincidence, I’ve bumped into two of those this week as well: Scott Myles and Simon Evans.

By the way, I’ve alread posted the issue covering then The Birmingham NEC Skateboard Competition mentioned here.

Picture show Marc and Barry Abrook, the ramp in Teignmouth and some orignal Anarchic Adustment graphics.

QUAKE TALES

What were you doing when the great quake struck? Typically M Zone and Anarchic ex-pat, Nick Philip, were talking on the phone. Mr Philip’s comments are not recorded. Strangely enough none of the familiar names from the area, not even Santa Cruz, suffered any major damage

BUT IS IT ART?

Nick Philip’s first exhibition of photo-copy art should be on now at The M Zone Gallery, Lowndes Court, Carnaby Street _ in the window. The NON private view was set for November 14th and the show will be on, 24 hours a day, for the following two weeks.

ZORLAC UK

The Abrook brothers have now opened up a Zorlac/Airbourne distribution base in Portsmouth and they’re awash with stock (the roof leaks), if not expensive leased office fittings. Expect to see a much higher Zorlac presence in Europe next year.

BIG BRUM COMP

Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre will be the venue for a huge pro skate contest on December 13th, 14th and 15th. Top skaters from Britain, the rest of Europe and the USA will be invited to compete in ramp, street and, get this, canyon (banked) slalom, for prizes totalling at least £4,000.

The British Skate Association and Angel Lights are running the competition side of the event, and building the ramp and the first ever slalom canyon. The contest is being run alongside a big Supercross event and will be televised during the new year.

Staging a big competition during the week (Wednesday to Thursday) rather than the weekend seems a bit weird, but the NEC is very easy for a lot of people to get to. It’ll be worth making the effort: without doubt this will be the biggest skate event of the decade in Britain. Doors open at midday with the main skate action taking place between 5 and 9 each day. Street will take place on Wednesday, banked slalom on Thursday and ramp on Friday (but remember, all the top names will take part in all the events). Elimination rounds will be during the afternoon with a final every evening. £3 per day gets you into the ‘fun sports’ arena to see skateboarding, BMX and mountainbike events. If you want to go into the Supercross hall a combined ticket will cost you something like £15-£20.

PLACES

Warrington: much petitioning to get something under way to compensate for the demise of the roller-rink, according to Wayne Seed.~e Something (a lot) stirs in Teignmouth. They’re planning to add a mini, a snake run into a bowl, a street set-up and a flat area to the existing 12′ half-pipe on the Broadmeadow Estate. Local builders are helping out with materials, a skip firm’s offering to lay the foundations for free, and a local architect’s doing the plans. More later.
St Andrews Skateboarding Association will have their new ramp at the Cosmos Centre in Abbey Walk by Christmas. 16′ wide, 5′ high, 8-9′ transitions. They saved £150 out of the takings of the club which they have been running for a year, and the Cosmos Centre chucked in another £300.
Camden have got the ramp built for Lucian Hendrickse’s appearance on You Bet’. The ramp has 10′ transitions, 2′ of vert and chrome coping, wheels and a lens-sized window in the transition, come to that. The Camden locals plan to extend the ramp and erect the thing on a site just round the corner from Talacre. They’ve got money and the services of a carpenter from the council. Now all they need is planning permission…
It’s not all good news though. The surface on Hastings is pretty mashed right now. Roll on steel. And the ramp next to Skate City in Bromley is out of bounds _ the owners of the site were wound up by people parking there, not so much the skating. Skate City are looking for a new home for the ramp. And we were misled about Marlborough: the College aren’t quite so cool about non students using the ramp. It did seem too good to be true.
Of course, you could move to Switzerland which will soon have a new concrete skatepark. The budget works out at over a million dollars. The 1990 European Championships will be taking place in Switzerland, so start working on your holiday plans now.